Air Mauritius, the flagship carrier of Mauritius will resume its direct operations from Delhi from May 03, 2023 onwards. At this occasion, Mr. Kresimir Kucko, CEO of Air Mauritius speaks with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World on resumption from the capital city, fleet expansions and many more key issues. Excerpt from the interview…
What’s the news that you want to share for the Delhi sector?
Air Mauritius has 50 years of presence in India with the flights and after the Covid, we restored the first flight to Mumbai which we are doing six times a week and now we are very proud to announce introducing flights to Delhi from 3rd May 2023 onwards. So, we are going to start with twice weekly flights and hopefully in October-November 2023 we may add the third weekly flights between Mauritius and Delhi.
Which type of aircraft will be pressed into operations for Delhi –Mauritius sector and what will be its frequency?
We are going to fly with Airbus 330 and it will be twice a week now and as I said in Oct-Nov 23 we will add third flight. So, basically same as the flight type to Mumbai. We are using a long haul fleet for our flight operations between Mauritius and India.
Could you focus on total number of fleets that Air Mauritius have at present. Also the expansion schedule for this year and beyond?
We are adding just as we speak another Airbus 330 and one more in few months. So, we have 4 Airbus A 350-900 XWB; 2 A330-300neo; 2 A330- 200; 3 ATR 72-500 aircraft. We have another one coming up in October 2023. This is the plan for current calendar year and next year in 2024, we will most likely add some regional fleet but then also from Airbus 320 family only. At the moment, we have two categories of fleets and will add more in later part of the year.
What volume of tourist that you are looking forward to target with adding Delhi flight?
India has very strong ties with Mauritius which are based on people to people relations. There is lot of family relations staying in both the country. So, its mix of travelers which includes not only leisure and honeymooners but also lot of business travelers as well. We have basically all major categories of passengers flying back and forth between Mauritius and India.
Apart from India which other major countries that airline is connecting?
We are flying to Europe and we are further expanding our European flights. We fly daily to Paris and from October 23 we will have a daily flight to London which is at present 5 times a week. In October 2023 we will add Geneva also as a seasonal destination. We are also flying to South Africa, Rodrigues Island, Kuala Lumpur and Australia and other few countries.
Anything specific you would like to say about your association with Air Mauritius?
I am 30+ plus years in this business .So I did basically everything accept flying and repairing the aircrafts at some point of my career. This is my 11th year as a CEO in my 3rd Company. I am very competitive and I would do my best to bring same success if not better with Air Mauritius as I did with Air Croatia and Gulf Air.
Any special message you would like to give to Aviation World readers?
Welcome to Air Mauritius! It’s a country where you will feel very much welcome and comfortable because of all these traditional cultural similarities. We are also Visa free country for Indian passport holders. So, by all means please come around and you are most welcome!
“Air Mauritius will have biweekly flights from Delhi using the Airbus A330 aircraft in a Business and Economy class configuration with a capacity of 254 seats. The duration of the flight is 7 hours and 30 minutes. From Mumbai , it operates six weekly direct flights in the same flight configuration.”
